Chapter one

GINEVRA

The white lights on the hospital ceiling buzzed softly above me as I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair, holding my phone tightly in my trembling hands. I had been waiting for almost forty minutes for my doctor, Dr. Vittorio Bellini, to call me with the results of my tests, and with every passing minute, the knot in my stomach seemed to grow tighter. I had tried to convince myself that everything would be fine, but the sickness in my stomach made it difficult to believe my own words.

I could not wait any longer. Whatever the results were, I needed to hear my son's voice. I needed something familiar to hold on to.

Without thinking, I opened my contacts and called the first number on my speed dial. It was my husband, Leandro. I pressed the phone against my ear and listened as it rang once, twice, and then three times before he finally answered.

"Leandro, where did you take Nico?" I asked, forcing myself to keep my voice calm even though another wave of nausea rolled through me. "I'm not feeling well. Can you please bring him home? I haven't seen him in three days."

There was silence on the other end for a moment, followed by sounds in the background. I could hear laughter and children shouting happily, and the noise made my heart beat faster because I had no idea where they were.

"Sorry, not tonight," Leandro finally said.

His voice was cold and distant, just like it had been whenever he spoke to me during the past two months.

My heart sank. "Why not?"

He did not answer, so I pulled the phone away from my ear to make sure the call was still connected. When I saw that it was, I pressed it back against my ear.

"Leandro, I asked you a question. Why can't you bring our son home?"

Again, there was silence, but this time I could hear the background more clearly. There was loud music playing, followed by the distant sound of a roller coaster and people cheering. My chest tightened when I realized where they might be.

"Are you with Beatrice?" I asked, and even saying her name left a bitter taste in my mouth.

"That's none of your business, Ginevra."

The call ended.

I stared at my phone, my hands shaking so badly that I almost dropped it. None of my business? Nico was our son. How could his father take him somewhere without telling me and then say that it was none of my business?

Before I could even process what had happened, my phone chimed with a new message. My stomach dropped when I saw Beatrice's name on the screen.

I knew I should not open it. Beatrice had made it clear that she wanted to make my life miserable, and every message from her seemed to come with a new reason for me to feel hurt. Still, I could not stop myself. My fingers moved across the screen and opened the message.

A photograph appeared.

My heart broke the moment I saw it.

Leandro, Beatrice, and Nico were standing together at Gardaland, with one of the park's grand castle structures behind them. Leandro had his arm around Beatrice's waist while she held Nico's hand. She was smiling brightly at the camera, looking completely happy, while my little boy stood beside her with the biggest smile I had seen from him in months.

They looked like a family.

A happy, complete family.

And I was the person who did not belong.

Shame and anger fought inside me as I stared at the photograph. My fingers trembled as I called Beatrice. She answered on the first ring, almost as if she had been waiting for me to call.

"Beatrice," I said through clenched teeth. "I don't care what game you're playing with Leandro, but Nico is my son. You can have Leandro if that's what you want, but you will never take my child away from me."

"Really?" Her voice sounded light and amused, as if I had just said something funny. "Why don't you ask Nico about that?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Nico, sweetheart, your mother is on the phone. Do you want to talk to her?"

My heart jumped at her words. Yes. I wanted to hear his voice. More than anything, I needed to hear my little boy tell me that he missed me and wanted to come home.

"Mom?"

Nico's voice came through the phone, but it was not the warm voice I had hoped to hear. Instead, he sounded annoyed.

"What do you want?"

My throat tightened. "Nico, sweetheart, I..."

"We're having fun. Stop bothering us. You're so annoying."

The call ended before I could say another word.

I remained frozen in my chair, still holding the phone against my ear even though there was nothing but silence coming from it. My six-year-old son had just called me annoying. He had told me to stop bothering him as though I were a stranger who had interrupted his day instead of the mother who had spent years putting his needs before her own.

"Mrs. Bellandi?"

I slowly looked up and found Dr. Vittorio Bellini standing in front of me with a brown folder in his hands. The serious expression on his face made my stomach twist again. I had seen that look on doctors before, and I knew it was never a good sign.

"Let's talk in my office," he said gently.

I followed him without saying anything. My mind was still stuck on Nico's words, and I could barely think about anything else. When I entered his office, I sat down across from his desk and stared at the folder in his hands.

The room was crowded with medical books and framed certificates, but I barely noticed any of them. All I could think about was the strange feeling in my chest and the fear that had been following me since the tests began.

Dr. Bellini sat down and opened the folder. He looked through the papers for a few moments before finally raising his eyes to me.

"Ginevra, I'm not going to lie to you or make this sound better than it is. Your test results show some serious problems. Because of the pain, nausea, and weight loss you have been experiencing, we ran some additional scans."

He paused, and I could see the sadness in his eyes before he continued.

"You have gastric cancer. It is already at stage three, and it has spread to your lymph nodes."

For a moment, I could not understand what he was saying.

Cancer.

Stage three.

Spread.

The words seemed to float around me without making any real sense. I looked at him, waiting for him to tell me there had been a mistake.

"What does that mean?" I finally asked, although my own voice sounded strange and far away.

Dr. Bellini leaned forward slightly, his expression softening. "It means you will need aggressive treatment. We can start chemotherapy, and surgery may also be possible depending on how your body responds. Treatment could give you more time, but I need you to understand the situation clearly."

I stared at him without speaking.

"Without treatment, you may have only three or four months," he continued carefully. "With treatment, you could have a year or possibly longer if your body responds well."

Three months.

Ninety days.

The number kept repeating inside my head.

I thought about Nico's face in the photograph, smiling at Beatrice as if she were the person he wanted beside him. I thought about Leandro's arm around her waist, the way they had looked so comfortable together, and then I remembered my son's voice telling me that I was annoying.

"Mrs. Bellandi, is there someone you can call?" Dr. Bellini asked. "You really should not be alone after hearing news like this."

I slowly shook my head.

Who was I supposed to call?

My husband would not answer me, and my son had just told me that he did not want me around. My family was not an option either. I had walked away from them years ago when I refused the arranged marriage they had planned for me. At the time, I had been young and foolish enough to believe that love would be enough to build a happy life.

I had chosen Leandro.

I had chosen the family we were supposed to create together.

Now I was sitting alone in a hospital office, being told that I might have only three months left to live.

"I'm fine," I whispered.

The lie sounded weak even to me.

Dr. Bellini did not argue. He scheduled another appointment, gave me information about treatment and support groups, and spoke about hope and the importance of fighting. I nodded whenever he spoke, but I barely heard him. My hands were too busy holding the papers that could decide how the rest of my life would go.

When I finally left the hospital, I felt like I was walking through someone else's life.

The afternoon sun was bright over Milan, and people hurried along the streets as if nothing had changed. Cars moved through the roads, people laughed as they spoke on their phones, and couples walked past me without knowing that my entire world had just fallen apart.

I stood on the pavement, clutching the brown folder against my chest.

My death sentence.

My phone suddenly buzzed.

I looked down and saw another message from Beatrice.

Another photograph.

This time, Nico was asleep in a hotel bed. Leandro was sitting beside him, gently running his hand through our son's hair while watching him sleep.

I stared at the photograph for a long time.

People moved around me, busy with their own lives, while I stood there feeling completely invisible. Something inside me finally broke.

I had given up everything for them. I had walked away from my family, sacrificed my career, and built my entire life around a husband and a child whom I believed would always love me.

And what had I become?

A replacement for the woman Leandro truly wanted.

An annoyance to my own son.

A wife who was no longer wanted.

I only had three months left to live.